Little clicked for Josh Allen in a disappointing game Thursday night versus the Houston Texans.
And still he came close to driving the Bills to a victory before an late pick in the last moments sealed their fate in a close defeat.
Allen endured back-to-back sacks on the Bills’ final possession, leading to a long fourth down, but the Bills (with seven wins) gained 44 yards on a quick throw from Josh Allen to Josh Palmer, who tossed a lateral to Khalil Shakir.
Following a pre-snap infraction created a fourth-and-6 for Buffalo, Calen Bullock intercepted Allen’s throw at the 9-yard line with under half a minute remaining.
We possessed a chance to win it there at the end,” Allen stated. “Our team performed a good job of hanging tough and our defense bailed us out a couple of times. We’ve got figure it out, and unfortunately we failed.”
Proved tough for the signal-caller to establish rhythm on a night he was brought down a personal-worst eight times and pressured four other times. Allen passed for 253 yards with a pair of picks and no touchdowns after producing six touchdowns in a victory over Tampa Bay last week.
“When they pressure our quarterback 12 times, that's unacceptable,” Buffalo's head coach McDermott commented. “I disapprove of that statistic at all. It’s just not a safe way to play and it isn't a good way to preserve our field general in good shape for the remaining games. We need to improve our performance.”
Allen was slow to get up after a sack in the opening two quarters. He said he was fine and that his shoulder “went a little numb” after he landed on it in an awkward manner. He was questioned about being contacted so many times on Thursday.
It's unpleasant,” he said. “I encountered a couple myself. I need to be better at disposing of the football. Too many times, I found myself going backwards.”
Allen surrendered 70 total yards on the eight sacks. Anderson had two and a half sacks to lead the Houston defense. His second one occurred when he nearly sacked the QB near the line of scrimmage, but he wriggled away and Anderson got up and chased him downfield to tackle him for an 18-yard loss to result in a punt early in the third.
Buffalo competed for a second straight game without receiver Keon Coleman after he was again a healthy scratch after he was late to a team meeting before their last game. He was earlier benched for the opening drive of a loss to the Patriots in Week 5 after additionally being late for a meeting.
“Nothing new. We are approaching it day by day,” McDermott noted. “I felt he had a better week, but we’re taking it step by step. It was not that it was ignored, but we went with the guys that provide the optimal opportunity.”
Shakir topped the Bills with eight catches for 110 yards and Cook had 116 rushing yards and a score.
The quarterback was disappointed that the team were unable to make plays in crucial moments.
“Ultimately, we’ve got execute, and we failed to succeed of that this evening,” he said. “No matter the scenario and whatever circumstance, we’ve got to find a way, and we came up short.”
